To parents who read the headlines about the AI apocalypse

Reality 1An extreme emotional response is totally normal. At least that's what my therapist tells me.

We adorable humans have predictably strong emotional responses to existential threat, limited knowledge, weak personal control, and involuntary exposure. The natural fight-or-flight behavior triggered by these scenarios is so widely researched and deeply understood that psychologists and behavioral scientists would think it odd if we didn't respond intensely when encountering them.

The latest AI doomsday headlines tell of possible consequences that are enormous. On top of that, the technology is difficult for most people to inspect, the timeline is uncertain, and none of us gave permission for our kids to be subjects in the global superintelligence trial. When you take a step back, this story the full tasting menu of strong emotional response triggers: existential threat, limited knowledge, limited control, and involuntary exposure.

While yes, your emotions are unsettling, they're also perfectly predictable! And there's another bright side — if you didn't react as strongly, you're likely either a robot or a psychopath. Mazal tov, normal human.

Pausing to recognize your body's normal human response to scary information then gives you the space to consciously resist the urge to feel you only have two options: blind faith or total panic. You have more options, and so do your children. And you have the power to avoid concluding that strong feelings are evidence of a real threat vs. simply evidence of information worth considering.

Reality 2Don't believe everything you read. At least not as the only source of truth.

While fear can distort judgment, it's only fair to admit that fear can also identify a legitimate issue that we may not want to ignore. Both conclusions can exist in the same reality. The hard work is deciding which precautions are justified by the possible harm, whether it's quality evidence, the cost of taking action, and the cost of waiting it out.

In the case of the AI apocalypse, a researcher's estimate is merely a judgment about an uncertain future. It deserves scrutiny, including attention to the expertise and reasoning behind it, but it doesn't become an established truth simply because it contains numbers.

Did you read the whole article? Who made the claim? What was the evidence? Was this a finding, a prediction, or someone's personal estimate?

Especially with headlines that are sensational, it's critical to look for the difference between "someone said this confidently" and "I have a good reason to believe it." That can be tough to focus on when something really scares you. (Or delights you. Or confirms something you already desperately want to believe.) That's why it's a skill that needs practice, and one that becomes more critical (and atrophies quicker) as intelligent machines get better at giving seemingly trustworthy answers. Knowing when to ask deeper questions, demand evidence, and seek certainty vs. when to accept uncertainty as the best case and take thoughtful action based on what you've got.

We already live in a world where millions of data points are elbowing their way onto your tiny palm screen every second of every day. How cringingly familiar do these starting statements feel to you?

"Here's why this happens…" "Here's what that means…" "Here's the thing nobody tells you…"

These statements are like nails on a chalkboard for me. With every swipe, enormous subjects arrive with statements dripping with certainty, conveniently delivered in a way that offers no motivation to sit with the information for more than a few seconds, and barely any time to process before someone tells you what to think.

Now, put a parent in front of a headline about human extinction. A researcher's judgment, built on technical knowledge, assumptions, and uncertainty, delivered with confidence and packaged as truth. We're given enough information to imagine our children dying, but likely nowhere near enough information to evaluate the prediction, and no adultier adult arriving with the alternative perspectives ready to go.

What a spectacularly awful gap to leave a parent standing in.

And then imagine being told it's on you to "do your own research." That's a fairly insulting response disconnected completely from the reality of parenthood. Between what and what, exactly? School pickup and becoming qualified to assess superintelligence?

We depend on other people's expertise. We have to. A functioning society requires that.

But we still need to be thoughtful about what their expertise establishes, where their uncertainty begins, and which decisions we can then assign to ourselves to make. Decisions like where to place our trust, and what to do next with the information we have been handed.

I'm not advocating for reflexively distrusting everyone. That is easy and somewhat lazy. I mean remaining intrinsically curious and asking questions like "Who has relevant knowledge?" "What supports their conclusion?" "What would change their mind?" "How much confidence is justified, and is that enough to act?"

It's wild to me how easily we have trained ourselves to move through a day receiving answers without practicing any of that thoughtfulness.

Yes, I'm constantly thinking about what my children will need in a world of increasingly intelligent machines. Everything from "will there be college" to "will there even be a human race". But I'm also watching for opportunities to practice building their resilience for this world right now through building cognitive resilience.

Can they stay with something they don't immediately understand? Can they recognize when an explanation left important underlying questions unanswered? Can they change their minds without feeling that they've given in? Can they tolerate uncertainty?

Can I?

Of course I want a guarantee of what the future holds for my children. I'm their crazy mother. But I have to decide what to do without that certainty, and how I want them to engage in a world where they will not have the benefit of certainty in the same way we had growing up.

Reality 3The things that make humans valuable are shifting, just as they did in every other revolution.

I believe there is a much bigger question underneath these apocalypse headlines that's worth dissecting. And it's not "What remains uniquely human that we'll always do better than the machines?" That's short-sighted. Instead, I believe the better question is "What will we understand human value to be if intelligence stops being something humans do best?"

Humankind is no stranger to revolutions driven by improvements in technology that completely blow up the definition of what makes humans valuable. If you're a parent of children under 18, you have been immersed in one definition your whole life: humans who know more, recognize patterns better, solve difficult problems better, and synthesize information better earn higher status, income, and authority. We've built schools around developing those capabilities and careers around selling them.

So it makes sense that our default defensive response (founded on our innate human need to survive) is to look for the thing we'll still be better at.

Is it creativity? Empathy? Judgment?

It's an admirable quest, but I think we need to be careful about building our children's sense of worth around a moving boundary of things machines cannot yet do, and a world where value is assigned externally.

For example, judgment may feel like a comfortable place to plant the flag, but if you give a system a set of values, constraints, and possible consequences, what guarantees that a human will always make the better call? Many would argue that machines are already better at judgment, even in highly consequential scenarios.

The alternative extreme answer is "welp, I guess there's nothing humans will be able to do better than machines." Oof, that kinda sucks. But let's play it out for the sake of an exercise.

If that's true based on how we define human value today, then suddenly we have the freedom to completely change what that definition could be. We get to ask really crazy questions like "what makes a life worth living when being the smartest thing in the room is no longer part of the arrangement?" "What do we want to experience?" "What do we owe one another?" "What is worth struggling with, even if a machine could spare us the effort?" "What would we want greater technological capability to make possible, and for whom?"

These questions deserve more than whatever inspirational bullshit fits on a slide about the future of work. They deserve sustained human attention. A machine might give me an extraordinary account of what makes a meaningful life, but I still have to live in it. I have to confront the delta between the values I say I hold and the choices I actually make, and the impacts on my life when other humans are doing the same calculations.

We tell children to discover what they're good at, and we reward correct answers, good grades, winning, being ahead. None of that is inherently wrong. I still believe that competence matters and being able to support yourself matters. (I would very much like my children to afford groceries.)

But, if a child learns to answer "Why do I matter?" primarily through "What am I better at than other people?", then what happens as machines become better than all people at those things?

I don't think we can responsibly promise our children a permanent intellectual advantage, but I do think we can help them build a relationship with themselves that has more to it than being impressive, and I think it can start simple with very ordinary conversations.

When they're proud of something, we can ask what they love about it before asking how it was received. When something matters to them, we can help them explore why. When they notice a problem, we can give them a real opportunity to contribute, even if someone else could do it faster or better.

When I think about preparing my children for a future where they may not be the most intelligent being "in the room", I want to give them permission to develop an inner life with some depth to it. Knowledge to draw on. Curiosity they act on. Relationships that stretch their perspective. Practice sitting with a question that doesn't resolve in fifteen seconds. And an appreciation for how their actions, values, and decisions impact the humans around them.

We can also help them examine what they care about. (Defining purpose takes effort!) You discover things about yourself by trying, committing, getting bored, disappointing someone, changing your mind, and deciding what is still worth doing.

Those are ways of developing a strong inner life. A sense of what deserves their attention, what they value, and how they want to engage with the world.

I don't know what their adult world will require of them economically, but I'm unwilling to let the question of "what can they outperform?" become the whole question of what they are worth. I want my children to have exercised their minds enough to take part in that redefinition NOW while the answers are still unfinished.

To wrap up this novellaA few last thoughts

Our children are being raised in a sci-fi movie wrapped in a warm geopolitical shitstorm blanket. None of this resolves the danger described in the AI apocalypse headlines, or any other existential threat-y headlines we seem to be encountering weekly these days. Companies and governments still have work to do that cannot be delegated down to parents or other laypeople.

It does, however, give us something worthwhile to do while those larger questions remain unresolved.

We can prepare children to encounter uncertainty without interpreting it as hopelessness. To seek help without surrendering their judgment. To adapt to changing expectations while continuing to ask whether those expectations reflect a life they actually want.

I can be frightened about the world my children may inherit and still help them discover reasons to engage with it, to enjoy it, and to make it better. Help them understand how the thoughtfulness they exercise when reacting, engaging, and collaborating with the world around them will become one of their most powerful assets.

The point is not to make the fear disappear and the point isn't to future-proof our children. That's a made up concept. The point is to convert fear into a question that can govern and inspire productive action and an appreciation for how, in whatever future arrives, humans will still be making choices about one another inside it.

For me at least, that feels like a reasonable place to begin.

And if all else fails, turn on some Bob Marley, turn off all screens, and enjoy the fleeting but certain life available to you right now.